


face to face

by Aufkurs



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Short sad babbling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 20:54:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aufkurs/pseuds/Aufkurs
Summary: There had never been an official report, he found out, after hounding the RAF for what felt like ages. Missing in action was all they would say. As good as dead is what he heard.





	face to face

**Author's Note:**

> I would recommend listening to Neighbors by Grizzly Bear. I'm normally not one for angsty stuff, but hey!

To everyone left standing, surviving, it felt like the death toll would never stop rising even after the war was declared over.

Between the deaths of civilians, the military, and the ruthless genocide, everyone had lost someone they had loved. 

Collins kept his _someone_ in the breast pocket of his jacket. It was a clipped photograph, black and white, doing the life captured in the snapshot no real justice. Light eyes with a hidden spark behind them stared at him, through him, beneath a furrowed brow. 

He didn't look at the photograph for years, but still he kept it safe, kept it hidden. There had never been an official report, he found out, after hounding the RAF for what felt like ages. _Missing in action_ was all they would say. _As good as dead_ is what he heard. 

And so he carried on, as instructed, as everyone else also tried their best to do. That's all they were really capable of, trying. 

He found himself a sweetheart. Married her, five years after the war, five years after he watched his real heart disappear over the horizon above Dunkirk. The hollow feeling in his chest never really faded. 

After their second child was born, both little boys inheriting his golden blonde locks and bright pink cheeks, he received a letter. There wasn't much information, but there was an address. 

His wife wasn't surprised when he packed up immediately for the two hour trip with very little notice. She held their newest son in her arms, looking at Collins with that patient, melancholy understanding in her brown eyes. They never really did strike his nerves like the light gray ones had. He was never cruel enough to tell her, but he thought she still knew, somehow. Women were smarter than men like that. 

When he walked up to the hospital, it felt more like a dream than reality. A familiar nightmare, perhaps, that he'd long since blocked from his mind after far too many nights of waking in a cold damp sweat. The pervasive smell of bleach clung to everything, even the pen and paper as he signed in with something like fear twisting in his gut. 

The nurses were soft, kind, _knowing_. Collins didn't envy them. All they ever saw was the remaining pieces and ghouls left behind from the indescribable horrors. 

When the nurse opened the door to a small room for him, he stepped inside and saw a ghost. 

If he didn't look closely, it would be very easy to think this room belonged to a stranger. As it were, when Collins stared dumbfounded at the worn out eyes of the shadow of the man in front of him, Collins could recognize him. Could recognize who he used to be, anyway. 

He tried to speak to him. Ended up speaking _at_ him. Light gray eyes slid over to him eventually, glassy and lazy, looking past him and not at him. Definitely not piercing through him, as they used to. Stuck on something else a million miles away. 

The nurse had warned him, before he stepped in, about him missing _a few fingers_ and _no real use of his legs, not anymore_ and being confined to a wheelchair. As much as she had tried to prepare him the image still struck his heart in a way he didn't know was possible anymore. 

He left after the better part of an hour. He'd tried, but there was no real conversation between them. The nurse offered comforting words, telling him she could tell he tried the best he could to stir something, anything. When he touched one of his hands, the other man didn't grip him at all, certainly not with the same desperate touch they'd shared on too few quiet stolen nights. 

When he returned home, his wife didn't ask any questions. His older son, no more than a toddler, clung to his pants leg and babbled happily. 

Maybe he should have felt like he left his heart behind in a dreary, arid hospital. He still felt like it was lost in the sand on a haunted beach. 

Later that night, he pulled the worn out photograph from his pocket, unfolding it carefully. The picture was faded, barely recognizable even to someone who knew what to look for. 

Collins put the photograph back in his pocket, letting his hand linger over the shape of it.


End file.
